Justin Melillo on MoNA Gallery’s metaverse for artists

0:01i'm ashton addison from block west capital for investmentpitch media in the cryptocoin show and today on blockchain interviews we have justin melillo ceo and co-founder of mona gallery justin welcome to the show thank you so much for taking the time to come on thanks so much for having me ashton it's uh really great to be here thank you yeah i'm super excited to dive into

0:21metaverse's nfts mona gallery is really working on some interesting initiatives that i think are especially important for artists and and creators that want to start moving into the digital world and i would love for you to kick it off by telling us a little bit about mona and what your team has been working on in the space thanks so much so uh matt alex and i are

0:46the co-founders of mona mona is a beautiful decentralized metaverse built for artists by artists and the three of us came together on a very specific mission we saw all the amazing metaverses that are out there in the nft space and we really wanted to provide a platform for artists to display their work at the highest fidelity in a virtual space and so we started by

1:09talking to a lot of 3d artists and a lot of really great crypto artists are just like marco matic trying to see how we could provide them a platform to build their work that they wanted to build and have it you know featured in the on the highest fidelity all in the web browser and so that that's mona so right now we're really excited we're running this

1:29build-a-thon in partnership with filecoin where filecoin is giving away 200 000. to their favorite 18 spaces that are being built throughout this month of october so we're coming up at the tail end of that and we're seeing so many incredible spaces that are being built and at the end of this build-a-thon falcon is going to collect these spaces and they're actually going

1:50to connect them together to build their home in the metaverse so yeah it's really really exciting that's very exciting and yeah for falcon to get involved already and to have artists creating spaces that are so unique you know i'm seeing what's capable inside of mona i've i'm familiar with some of the other metaverses that have been around and um you know i feel

2:15like we're still pretty early on in what metaverses are to become you know the possibilities are really endless and it's only been a few short years of experimentation in the space so far uh i do you know you've probably been following them out over space you've seen what's coming out you know how did you take what was in metaverse's and build on that and sort of moving towards

2:37a vision of what the future of metaversus look like for mona that's a great question yeah so the you know we we saw all the amazing metaverses that are out there and also looking back at the history of this idea of the metaverse you know we're in the metaverse right now we're having this you know video call uh and so what we wanted to do was take all those great

2:58qualities of places like decentral and cryptovoxels where uh they're allowing artists to build these incredible immersive spaces where they can display and share their nfts and have a shared experience and so we wanted to provide that with mona where we can give artists a place where they can create uh their work as they see fit uh and they're able to invite their friends to

3:20come and have a shared experience there where they can discuss their work and we're looking at you know even the future of this right now everything is all in the web browser but we're developing our vr component as well so you can dive into a vr headset and have a shared immersive experience in these beautiful spaces and we're also planning for the ar future as well with uh you know

3:41as hardware gets better and as you know apple is soon to release their ar headsets we're planning for that feature as well and so what we're trying to do is just take it step by step we're seeing a lot of attention and activity in just the web browser on a desktop you know on a monitor and so we're starting there so we're letting artists anyone who wants to create

4:00you know a space in mono we're letting them create using their own 3d tools like blender cinema 4d all the tools they're used to creating with and we provide them with a super simple template to get started to upload their 3d spaces that they're building and then they basically take that template export it and upload it to our mono web uploader just all on mona dot gallery so we we're

4:22trying to make this process super simple for artists who want to get started and the beauty of what we're doing in our metaverse is each of these spaces are nfts themselves so as an artist you're able to create a space an immersive environment that you own and as a space owner you're able to actually import nft artifacts into the space so you can start displaying your 3d sculptures that

4:42you have in your wallet or your paintings or jpegs and uh as a space owner you're also able to connect your space to other spaces that are within mona and so that's how you know at the end of the file coin form that's how that's going to work for follow coin where they're going to connect all these 18 spaces together and so we're trying to take all those

4:59really great qualities that we see in existing metaverses you know and and you know bring those to mona and provide a little bit more for for artists and collectors as well definitely that's really cool uh and i think interacting with you know it's nfts inside of nfts you know you can have a space that's an nft and then you can have some fine art uh you know in an

5:19art gallery inside of mona uh and people can walk into the space and you know purchase that or interact with it super cool and i'm guessing that you know the artists it takes a special kind of artist to start creating a space like this because there's really no limitations you know a traditional art gallery having fine art you know you're you're sort of stuck in that brick and mortar

5:42limitations but you know in a metaverse there's no you know there's there could be no gravity you could be underwater you could be anywhere you know so i feel like that's sort of attracting a certain kind of artist um and then for but for also for them to understand how the nfts work and be able to create limitless possibilities not just in how you interact with the art but you

6:05know how that can have functionality inside of the nfts moving forward and for years to come or for decades to come absolutely that's that's one of the main reasons why i personally got into this as a digital artist myself i love seeing all the revenue and earning potential that nfcs unlock for artists who previously could really only monetize their work by selling prints or merch or

6:30by working you know as an artist in a commercial studio or you know film studio which is also great but seeing uh all these these amazing opportunities that nfts unlock you know the three of us and what we're building at mona we just want to keep building on that and providing artists with new revenue potentials uh you know in terms of what these nft spaces can offer uh in

6:52the utility that comes with that totally and you mentioned that you can go to mona into the web browser you know you don't have to be in a virtual reality but being in a virtual reality obviously it's going to make it more immersive and interactive and i'm curious because i know facebook is working on a metaverse and they also own oculus and they have the vr technology

7:16have you been following their metaverse or more centralized metaversus versus decentralized metaverses and is that good or bad for the space moving forward i think that is ultimately good for the space moving forward i think at this point um you know everything that's being done on the hardware side and what you know with with the distribution that oculus and

7:38has has achieved uh it really has been a watershed moment for vr in terms of that uh you know that sort of price point and allowing this mass adoption of vr and in terms of metaverses i think you will always see these centralized you know private metaverses in addition to the decentralized metaverse future ultimately i think it is a good thing for metaversus as a whole um but for us

8:03and what we're building and in web 3 we see the value and um you know we we value that the decentralized metaverse much more than a centralized closed off metaverse we see that type of collaboration that web3 enables as super super important and i think it is going to be important that in the future uh you know the bulk of these metaverses will be decentralized and i think uh

8:28that is what is going to win when uh you know when this sort of metaverse future is that decentralization you're already seeing all the different ways that web 3 is innovating on this sort of private centralized you know web 2 technology and so the metaverse is just going to be another iteration of that where with this decentralization comes this shared ownership of these 3d

8:51spaces and that's what we're starting with and that's what we're you know we want to achieve with mona we want these spaces to be owned by the community by the artists by collectors so it's not owned by one one entity but it's collectively owned and shared definitely and i think that's the important difference between you know these two worlds is not it's not the

9:12graphic quality in the metaverse it's who actually owns this property who has the right to use it uh to do things with it you know um in in with nfts you know you could potentially own the land lend it out earn interest on it trade it for others uh in the facebook metaverse you may own nothing and be happy who knows um right absolutely yeah and it's also looking at

9:37you know another another uh sort of example that are these web 3 social media platforms and if you're looking at social media as it is today it's like the users the lifeblood of these platforms don't actually own their content ultimately right and so that's why also with what we're building it's it's super important that everything is user owned um and also that everything

9:58that we're doing in mona is fully composable these spaces are ultimately also going to be able to be used in other decentralized metaverses we see that type of collaboration is being super important very cool and i know you know in your past work you've also worked you mentioned ar now you worked with magic leap which is one of the most innovative companies with ar and i'm curious if you

10:20can lead some hints into you know how mona or the future of metaversus that you're working with are going to also include augmented reality i'm so excited for this augmented reality future uh you know i've been in the space for a while now with magic leap and also with developing ar social experiences uh for artists like lizzo and cnn maroon5 uh these sort of ar like

10:42social lens experiences in instagram and snapchat and i think the surface is just beginning to be scratched with what these types of things can offer we see snapchat just released the latest version of their spectacles which is like a sort of early release program so you have some snapchat creators now using snapchat ar glasses where everything they're doing in their

11:03program can be applied to this wearable device and so you're starting to see the possibilities here and everything that i was doing at magic leap it was super super early on and so eventually we're going to see this merging between vr technology and ar technology where you'll be able to overlay these incredible mona spaces into your you know irl environments so you'll be able

11:26to see beautiful 3d artworks you know inside your environment all through a wearable headset these headsets have these cameras that can map your environment and read your room and see and create a sort of one-to-one mesh of the real world and so you can actually take like a moana painting and put it on your irl wall and anyone else wearing a headset would also

11:47be able to see it so really exciting things like that and yeah just to be able to take a moment of space and drop it into the real world and then be able to walk around in it as though you're you know in the web browser it's gonna we're just looking forward to adding all these immersive uh qualities and bringing that to people through ar definitely yeah i'm looking forward to

12:06that as well justin and i'm curious if there's any you know that sounds like an amazing vision but i know there's a lot of things that your team is working on maybe you can talk about you know what are the major things that mona is looking forward to next coming out the end of this year and into 2022 for sure for us we see a lot of uh traffic and volume in these metaverses

12:27as still being over the web browser and on a desktop through a monitor and so we're focused on getting that experience right uh first and then from there we're gonna scale out to vr and ar experiences and so for us right now we're really looking forward to finishing out this filecoin forum buildathon we have a ton of great artists who've signed up and really amazing spaces that

12:48are being built and from there uh we're actually going to be planning more of these build-a-thons in the future and then on our our product roadmap side very soon we're introducing that multiplayer functionality so you can start to explore these spaces with your friends and have shared experiences with voice chat and that's going to enable our events system that will soon to be

13:09rolled out as well so you can actually have private or public events host artist drops uh even have a concert inside of mona eventually and then from there we're going to be adding avatar customization features we're looking to integrate with all the great avatar platforms that are out there and allowing people to have full control over their digital metaverse

13:29identity and you know obviously we're also looking at that vr experience in ar experience as well incredible and for the viewers and for artists and creators as well that are looking to get involved with mona check out the space look potentially building in there what is the best way for them to learn more and to get involved if you want to get involved in mona just

13:51visit our website at mona dot gallery we have all of our info there our falcon forum build-a-thon is still going on it's going to be ending our last missions will be accepted on november 3rd so there's a little bit of time left and uh but even beyond that if you'd like to build a space it's so easy to get started so you can just visit mona dot gallery we have our all of our

14:11documentation that'll help you get started on building and uploading a space to to mona also definitely uh follow our discord link there it's so exciting to see this creative community forming around building these nft spaces and artists sharing their work in in our discord so definitely join our discord and introduce yourself as well sounds great justin i will leave the

14:32link to the discord and mona gallery in the description box below all the best with mona moving forward i'm excited to see how this all plays out and to eventually hang out with you in virtual reality in mona i can't wait thanks so much ashton really excited for the future